The children of the night

 Once again, I have failed to post anything beyond once a week.  Ugh, I suck. Sorry, everyone!

To be fair to me, Ramadan has only just ended (happy Eid to those of you celebrating today). Ramadan has meant several late nights for me, as I've been doing anti-ICE patrols--though one of my groups actually had people patroling in the wee hours of the morning--like, 3:00 am! I wish I were the sort of person who could have done that? I bet the Dispatch calls were fascinating. And, maybe it would have inspired a vampire story or two, who knows?

Part of me will miss this. In particular, I will miss the Night Owls.

The Night Owls (which actually start at the fully normal hour of 8 pm) are an interesting group. It's a group resistance Signal call for anyone up and about until dawn, no matter where they are located. So, I've had people on with me that were coming in from exo-suburbs and even nearby small towns.

The culture of a lot of the Signal calls is that commuters and stationary/foot/bicycle patrolers say pretty quiet and only turn their mics on to do a plate check. This varies from community to community, of course, with some dispatchers encouraging more back and forth or doing round-robin check-ins. It really depends on who your "Guy/Gal/Enby in a Chair" is.  There's things specific to specific groups too?  My hyper-local community always signs-off with "Have a great night, Fuck ICE" in the same sort of casual tone you might tell a partner "Love ya!" before hanging up. I joke that I can always tell people from my area when they show up on the larger calls because they still do this even when its not the culture of the call? Other dispatchers sound a little thrown to hear folks from my neck of the woods just casually signing off with a happy little swear. There are also cool acronyms that I'm not fully privvy to, like some folks from the other side of the river apparently say: SSFI for Stay Safe, Fuck ICE.  I tried to say that today since there are lot of little ears around the mosque during Eid, but my dyslexia was like... UH GO SLOW... so totally outed myself as NOT one of the cool kids, after all. :-)

But the Night Owls are their own special crew. Their chat is actually vetted, but the call is open to anyone commuting, etc., late night. Once daylight savings time hit, my stationary patrols started at 8:30 pm so I joined the Night Owls. The Night Owl folks are just chattier? Largely, I think because it is often the same crew--people who do the late shift UberEats or whatever other driving gigs they might have.... people who are just up all night. They will talk about their favorite energy drinks or talk about the usefulness of jumper cables or sometimes even awkwardly attempt to flirt over Signal voice chat. Ocassionaly, someone will break in with a startled, "Y'all, I just saw the world's biggest rat run across west 7th! And I used to live in Mumbai!" There was a whole discussion that spanned several nights about the ICE agents on Grindr (a gay dating app).   

I got invested, you know?

These people became some Real Life version of my own personal soap opera. I am going to admit that I have clearly formed some parasocial relationships with certain code names. 

That being said, they were really there for me when I needed it. There was an incident that I haven't blogged about a couple of Wednesdays back where my plate check came back hot, or shall we say VERY COLD, possibly even icy if you get my drift. I was stationary (on foot), alone, and dispatch very kindly asked me if I wanted a drive-by from one of the other commuters in the area. This icy vehicle was also stationary? We had clocked each other? Like, they were parked and the three of us had made eye contact. So, my voice jumped an octave higer than I intended and I was like, "Uh, yeah, I would not hate that, dispatch. Thank you!"

Y'all, within MINUTES rescue arrived. 

Rescue was a gender fluid person on bicycle patrol. This fully bearded, beautiful human being rolled up in 10 F/ -12 C degree weather in a skirt and Wicked Witch of the West striped tights. They had a high-powered telephoto lens camera with them and, I kid you not, the sight me--this tiny, fat lesbian on a phone--and  this amazing person arriving on a bicycle caused my icy van to decide THE THREAT WAS TOO BIG (which, honestly, was the most ICE-like move they made). They fled. I reported that my sus van was on the move to dispatch and I could hear commuters everywhere leaping into action. I am sure my sus van had a tail before they turned on to the next biggest throughfare. 

When I had to sign out, I heard the Night Owls making sure someone would continue to swing by to keep an eye on the mosque. I was so thrown by this experience that I didn't remember to text our contact inside the mosque until I got home, but I only live minutes away, so they got the word out for people to be extra careful that evening, too. I don't know, of course, for sure the folks we chased off were who we were afraid they might be, but I'm just as happy to have freaked out any other potential bad actors, you know? I swear that right now, in the Twin Cities, you do not want to be a "local, independent pharmaceutical entrepreneur" because some commuter has eyes on your business!  

So, I think this is why I feel kind of connected. Like, these are my comrades in arms (or by phone, as in the case of the Minnesota Resistance). 

Happy Eid, but good-bye my dear Night Owls! SSFI*!


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I'll still be doing rapid-response work, but probably no longer at night.